A TEAM of female mountaineers will head to Greenland next week to explore some of the world's most spectacular and uncharted territories.

A TEAM of female mountaineers will head to Greenland next week to explore some of the world's most spectacular and uncharted territories.

The five women, four from North Wales, will spend nearly a month in the Schweizer-land mountains along the east coast, scaling peaks never previously climbed.

The mountain range is so remote it will take the team four days by boat and by ski to reach base camp after landing at Kulusuk, Greenland, next Thursday.

They will sail north up the icy Sermilaq Fjord to the snout of the Knud Rasmussen Glacier - their last contact with the outside world.

For three or four days the women will ski up the glacier, dragging their kit on sledges, to base camp below the south face of Tupilak, the 7,217-ft peak they plan to climb.

Team leader Sue Savege, a leading mountaineering instructor at Plas y Brenin, Snow-donia, said: "The remoteness and isolation of our proposed climb makes this a daunting journey.

"We are totally on our own. It is a beautiful and untouched wilderness with mountains that have not been climbed before.

"In a funny kind of way I am almost looking forward to some of the hardship I know we will experience."

The 43-year-old, of Denbigh, will be joined by fellow instructors Justine Curgenven, of Porth Darfych, near Holyhead, Catrin Thomas, of Llanberis, Rosie Goolden, of Oswestry, and Di Gilbert, who lives in Scotland.

Justine, 29, is an adventure film-maker and will record the climb for a National Geographic programme Extreme Challenge due to be shown in January 2004.

Last night she was returning from a recordsetting sea kayaking expedition on Russia's desolate Kamchatka peninsula.

The highlight of the Greenland expedition will be Tupilak.

Sue said: "We will be going up a previously unclimbed route on the south face.

"People have trekked up Tupilak before but we are going straight up the 1,300m (4265ft) rock face, which has never been done.

"Part of it will involve using ice axes and crampon and the rest is extreme rock climbing.

"Alpine mountains are graded according to their difficulty from easy to extreme and this is in the hardest grade.

"It may take several days, but given at this time of year there is 24 hour daylight in Greenland, the plan is to push through, climbing ultra-light and climbing through the night."

Once the south face of Tupilak has been scaled, the team will spend a couple of weeks exploring other parts of the Schweizerland mountains.

Sue said: "We will do half a dozen or so other peaks after Tupilak, we hope, although you can never tell because of the weather. In all we are spending 25 days there, which gives us plenty of time."

Plas y Brenin head of training Martin Doyle, who has successfully scaled Everest, praised the efforts of the team.

He said: "This is a challenging and ambitious goal. It is always inspirational to see expeditions pushing the boundaries and mountaineers pushing themselves.

"Everyone at Plas y Brenin will wish them success and I hope it helps to inspire other women to look at climbing as a sport for them."